Others Work While EngEd Plays

While I was enjoying the Tokyo Motor Show, Tsukiji fishmarket and Kabuki theater (did you know Japanese ghosts don't have feet?), others of our staff were gleaning neat Tidbits on my behalf. To wit:

Most Popular

EV Scooter Breaks 60 mph!

Our resident 2-wheel specialist Mike Monticello usually provides his own bicyclic motive power. But recently he turned to electricity. He reports:

The Vectrix is the world's first fully electric highway-legal scooter. Beneath the rider lies 185 lb. of nickel/metal-hydride batteries, for a total weight of 462 lb. Despite this heft, Rhode Island-based Vectrix Corporation (the scooters are assembled in Poland) claims its 2-wheeler reaches 50 mph in 6.8 seconds.

Its electric motor's initial torque is limited in off-the-line full-throttle acceleration, but once past this initial lag, the Vectrix gets up to its top speed of 62 mph quickly and without effort.

As with most scooters, the Vectrix is simple to operate just get on and go. A neat throttle-activated regenerative braking function in which you twist the throttle forward slows the scooter down; it also serves as Reverse when parking. For serious stopping, you use its Brembo brakes. Although this regenerative function is claimed to extend the scooter's range by up to 12 percent, we saw no noticeable effect.

The Vectrix is fun, easy to park, recharges in 2½ hours and in California you can lane-split on crowded freeways. But we never achieved the claimed 4060 miles of range per charge. Instead, our usable range (discounting the last 10 miles, when it adopts a speed-starving power-save mode) is closer to 25 miles (no problem: my commute was 17).

When you consider the $12,000 price of the Vectrix, suddenly "going green" may not be all it's "amped-up" to be, especially when a 250-cc Honda Reflex scooter costs half as much, weighs 100 lb. less and can make it through a work-week of the same commuting on one 3.2-gal. tank.

Volvo has become the first automaker to offer an alcohol breathalyzer as optional equipment. Ian Adcock (who drinks only in moderation and never when he's driving) reports from Europe:

The Alcoguard uses the same fuel-cell technology employed in police breathalyzers. It detects ethanol molecules on the breath and produces a small electrical current illuminating a series of lights.

If a driver's blood-alcohol level exceeds the limit, a red light confirms that the car won't start. Otherwise, it's green or yellow, the latter allowing a startup with warning.

Here in the U.S., the limit is 0.08 percent; in Sweden, it's 0.02 percent.

The unit's cost in Sweden is around $1100. It will be available in most Volvos within a year.

Porsche Identified as Cool

Our local Orange County Museum of Art organized a neat exhibit, "Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury." Not surprisingly, as you enter, there's a 1960 356 C Super 90 rightfully identified as cool. Within the exhibit, one of its siblings appears in the carport of an oh-so-cool residence, Case Study House #21, architect Pierre Koenig, as photographed by Julius Shulman and Juergen Nogai.

My formative years were in midcentury, so this exhibit resonated particularly strongly. The music of Dave Brubeck, Chet Baker, June Christy, Chico Hamilton and Gerry Mulligan. Road Runner cartoons, the product of Chuck Jones at Warner Bros. Architectural designs by Eero Saarinen. Furniture by Charles and Ray Eames.

Come to think of it, I have an Eames Aluminum Group lounge chair in my office today. Cool.

A fine catalog is available: Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, hardcover, 304 pages, $65; through ocma.net. The exhibit resides at OCMA through January 6, 2008. Then it travels to the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, February 15April 13; the Oakland Museum of California, May 18August 17; the Akron Art Museum, September 27January 4, 2009; and the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, February 27May 31, 2009.

Toyota 1/X

My favorite concept car of the Tokyo Motor Show wasn't particularly off-the-wall. Rather, it suggested an innovative use of advanced materials.

The has the interior space of a at about one-third the weight. Don't be put off by the concept's lack of doors, roof panels, dash and other essentials; these are omitted for display purposes but all figured into its 926-lb. curb weight. Befitting this lack of avoirdupois, the 1/X has a minuscule 500-cc engine as part of its plug-in hybrid package, the entire assemblage fitted beneath and aft of the rear seats.

The basic body structure is fabricated of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic. calls the upper structure a "bio-roof" and notes it's made of kenaf and ramie fibers reinforcing a lactic-acid polymer bioplastic. Kenaf is a tropical Asiatic plant, Hibiscus cannabinus (whoa!); ramie is a coarse perennial, Boehmeria nivea, a member of the nettle family. Part of the roof is semi-transparent, allowing light to filter into the cabin.

At first reading, this all borders on eco-touchy-feely. But it also suggests a basic rethinking of a car's total life cycle. Like a vulcanized tire, for instance, carbon fiber simply doesn't recycle. On the other hand, nor does it rust, corrode or degrade like conventional automotive structures. Although Toyota doesn't suggest this explicitly, it's not unreasonable to consider recycling the entire carbon-fiber structure in situ, and refurbish only its attached mechanicals, metallics, fabrics and the like. Porsche's Long-Life Car, proposed at the 1973 Frankfurt show, was a concept along similar lines.

Carbon Fiber Coming to Market

Carbon fiber is immensely light and strong. It's also a notoriously expensive material and, with its autoclave-complex fabrication, seemingly not the thing for mass production. On the other hand, Boeing's new 787 and the Airbus A380 are rich in carbon-fiber structures.

And recent word is that Toyota has invested heavily in Toray Industries, Japan's largest manufacturer of carbon fiber. Toray is said to be spending close to $175 million in a new R&D center and plant, both dedicated exclusively to automotive applications.